Clandon Park

Clandon Park is a country house designed around 1713 and built between 1725 and 1731 for Thomas Onslow by the architect Giacomo Leoni. A porte cochere was added to the west front in 1876 by the Fourth Earl of Onslow.

The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and has a square plan with a porch projecting to the west. All four elevations are different in character. The roof is obscured by parapets and is probably tiled.

The west front contains the main entrance and comprises two storeys and an attic over a basement, arranged in nine bays. The centre three bays are stone-faced and pedimented. Angle quoins run to the ends, with a stone plat band over the ground floor, modillion cornices over the first floor and attic, and a balustraded parapet above. Square attic windows sit under gauged brick heads. First-floor windows are glazing bar sashes on stone cill bands, with centre windows on the first floor set under pediment hoods on scrolls. Six plain arched windows occupy the ground floor, with two windows flanking the central porte cochere within a rusticated range featuring impost mouldings. A single-storey balustraded porte cochere with channelled rustication fronts the entrance, accessed by an impressive double flight staircase in sedan pattern with balustrades.

The north facade (left-hand return) has two storeys and an attic with basement at ground floor level. Five bays are arranged with the centre three projecting and featuring rusticated brick quoins to the ground and first floors and at the ends. Round-arched windows light the ground floor, with a square stone porch below.

The east front (garden front) displays two storeys and attics over basements with a plat band over the ground floor, cornices over the first and attic floors, and a balustraded parapet. Eleven bays contain a slightly projecting centre section over a stone basement. Attic windows are square; first and ground floor windows are glazing bar sashes under gauged heads with round arches to the ground floor. Fluted stone Corinthian pilasters decorate the centre bays on the first floor, with swags linking them. Ground-floor centre windows are arched with linking impost moulding.

The south front has two storeys and attics over a basement with a plat band over the ground floor, cornices over the first and attic floors, and balustraded parapets. Brick quoins mark the angles. Five bays include a slightly projecting centre section with giant Corinthian pilasters rising to the first floor and stone swags over the outer first-floor windows.

The interior contains rich decoration. The Entrance Hall dominates as the principal room, extending through two storeys with two superimposed Corinthian orders, the upper one smaller for perspective effect, and Greek key pattern soffits to the lower order. Blind aedicules occupy three sides of the first floor, with a gallery or corridor to the fourth side. Five doors in egg and dart surrounds lead to ground floor rooms. Two very fine fireplaces and overmantles by Rysbrack depict the Sacrifice to Bacchus and the Sacrifice to Diana, each with broken crowning pediments and flanking scrolls. The Baroque style plasterwork ceiling, attributed to Atari, features a central circle with relief of seated figures and a complex symmetrical pattern around it with shells and angle cartouches. The limbs of the main figures spill out from the frame in Baroque manner.

To the left of the Hall stands a plain 18th-century staircase with an iron handrail. To the right is a three-flight return staircase with half landings, dating to the 19th century but executed in 17th-century manner with carved newel posts.

The Morning Room is Late Palladian in style with oval ceiling plasterwork and an urn frieze to the walls. An Adamesque marble fireplace is fitted, with bay leaf garlands and egg and dart mouldings to the doors.

The Palladio Room has a panelled plaster ceiling with geometrical angle patterns and a central oval. Light putti with low relief clouds decorate the centre relief, above a deep frieze and cornice to the walls. An 18th-century fireplace is present.

The Hunting Room features late 18th-century fireplaces and a 17th-pattern ceiling with angle garlands and a rectangular centre panel within a modillioned cornice.

The Green Drawing Room contains a central plaster oval to the ceiling with attached roundels, a bay leaf garland frieze, and an 18th-century fireplace with flanking caryatids and decorated bolection moulding crowned by a swan's neck pediment.

The Saloon has a massive black marble fireplace with a central white marble panel and grey marble garlands to flanking piers, topped by an eyebrow pediment. An oval plaster ceiling displays strapwork and cartouche decoration with putti and classical figures to the centre.

The State Bedroom features a modillion and bay leaf garland ceiling cornice with plasterwork.

The State Dining Room contains paired, lugged, classical, egg and dart fireplaces with pedimented overmantles.

The north-west corner of the house, containing the Speakers Room and other spaces, was redecorated in Louis Quatorze style.

The grounds were laid out by Capability Brown in 1776.